Today, as Veterans Day is observed across the United States, the Huffington Post features a blog by Tae Yoo, Senior Vice President for Corporate Affairs at Cisco, entitled “Getting Veterans Back to Work.”
According to Tae’s blog, approximately 1 million U.S. Armed Forces personnel will transition from military to civilian life within the next four years, including about 300,000 by August 2013. Unfortunately, military servicemen and servicewomen often have difficulty transitioning to jobs in the private sector once.
One reason: military job codes don’t easily translate to civilian job descriptions, making it difficult for veterans to find meaningful civilian careers that match their skills and interests.
This article hits the nail on the head! Not only is it difficult for the returning Vet to transition, but I found it nearly impossible to work with recruiters, mostly because they had no idea what I was talking about, what I had done, how to place someone with advanced training who was a decade ahead of the majority of corporate businesses. The gap must be addressed at the Corporate level, down through those hired to fill open positions. With the speed of change in IT- Unfortunately I don’t see this changing until everyone involved is brought on board. Competition in business will continue to stab many of those who have succeeded to pass the intelligence gathering portion and have moved on to seek positions that will continue to challenge, without putting these people in dumbed down pigeon holed unsatisfying undefined jobs that no one else wants. So now I am preparing to certify in work that I did 15 years ago where there was no certification, very few had the experience nor the knowledge.
Now that the major players like Cisco, Microsoft, and others have a opened the door to allow more people to be educated and with the hiring firms and their education facilities allowed to teach this content – we will get closer to bridging the gap. When I was learning, working and developing my skills, everything was a secret and if you were lucky to be on a team that had professionally trained Cisco member – they were like Cisco/Microsoft Gods and you did everything you could to learn as much as possible from them. I was one of seven percent of all those that had certifications and to be fortunate enough to work for a company that embraced technology as a necessity and not as a passing fad.
America must get on board and do all that it can to teach, train and bring forward Science and Technology for anyone interested in pursuing it. Our country’s security, competitive edge, economy, etc is at stake. Also, as long as there are no guidelines to producing new technology and/ at what speed it is allowed to spread, Companies/employees and all the rest in between will continue to struggle to find/ keep and stay in positions that will keep America productive. Some kind of bench marking guidelines should be considered to manage the expansion of what is allowed to be implemented.
Five spears of Change can be better managed when there are unified groups to manage them. Design, Planning, Implementation, Maintenance and Retirement and Security. There are laws on the Congressional table in respect to the Security portion of these issues of technology, but this is only a beginning, we need more of the like. What do you think?